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Create Rules Based on Entourage Messages

When creating rules in Entourage 2008, you can save some time by selecting a message like those you want the rule to work on before defining the rule. That way, when you add criteria to your rule, Entourage fills in the data based on the data in the selected message. So if you wanted to filter messages containing TidBITS, you could select an issue and add a new "From Contains" criterion to a rule. Entourage will automatically fill in the editors@tidbits.com address in the criterion.

ExtraBITS for 25 August 2014

The second public beta of the upcoming OS X Yosemite is out, making this a perfect time to pick up Joe Kissell’s “Take Control of Beta Testing Yosemite.” However, it isn’t a perfect time to be a print journalist; Clay Shirky delves into what current journalists need to learn to stay relevant. Ed Bott explains how the Mac is dominating a segment of the PC market, and Alexis Madrigal argues that email may be the Internet’s last best hope.

OS X Yosemite Public Beta 2 Out — Get “Take Control of Beta Testing Yosemite” Now -- Apple has released the second public beta of the upcoming OS X Yosemite, but with no word about what might have changed. If you’re running the first public beta, get the new version from the Updates tab in the App Store app. You can still sign up for the public beta, and regardless, we recommend picking up a copy of Joe Kissell’s name-your-own-price “Take Control of Beta Testing Yosemite,” which provides complete details on preparing for, installing, and testing the Yosemite beta.

Journalists: Print Newspapers Are Dying, Time to Pivot -- At Medium, journalism professor and inveterate Internet observer Clay Shirky declares the end of the print newspaper and makes a blunt recommendation, “If you are a journalist at a print publication, your job is in danger. Period. Time to do something about it.” In particular, he encourages current journalists to learn to understand and present data, become comfortable with social media as a newsroom tool, and get experience working in teams to launch new products.

How Apple Is Winning the PC Market -- Ed Bott of ZDNet argues that Apple is winning the PC market, or at least the only segment that still matters. Though Macs accounted for less than 6 percent of last year’s PC sales overall, Bott estimates that Apple’s MacBook Air controls 30 percent of the “premium ultramobile” segment of the market, which also includes high-end Ultrabooks and Microsoft’s Surface Pro line. That part of the market is highly profitable, and is expected to grow by 50 percent this year alone.

In Defense of Email: Our Last Best Hope -- Email is far from hip these days. Pundits and investors alike salivate over ways to replace it with something more modern, but The Atlantic’s Alexis Madrigal argues that email is still the best part of the Internet. Despite its flaws, email is open, universal, decentralized, mobile-friendly, and decidedly less commercial than alternate communications technologies. Madrigal argues that email may be our last best hope of keeping the large tech firms from imprisoning us in their proprietary walled gardens.